Marketing in the Mobile Era

How the Mobile Boom Changed the Direction of Marketing

Within the last decade, the marketing industry has seen the power of direct marketing shift from print, to TV, to online advertising. Currently, we are seeing another major direction shift in marketing. This directional shift is called the mobile boom. Business Insider reports that in 2011, the number of smart phones sold exceeded the numbers of PCs sold. With this trend continuing (and accelerating) in 2012, many brands and advertisers are targeting consumers via their mobile devices.

In the past decade, retail stores experienced a sharp shift in consumer purchasing from brick and mortar to online. This shift resulted in retailers across the nation closing stores, laying off workers and focusing their attention online to maximize profits.

Now another shift is happening. Consumers are accessing the internet via their mobile devices in large and growing numbers. This is important because online marketers were once limited to reaching their market when they were in front of their computer – usually at home or in the office. This resulted in large blackout times where advertisers could not reach their consumers. With mobile marketing, advertisers can reach their potential customers at any time and in any place.

The question now is, as a business, what are you doing to make sure that you are part of this mobile boom?

Producers now have a few ways to capitalize off of this shift.

The first step is to build mobile optimized pages for online storefronts. This will help increase revenue by improving the consumer experience. The easier it is for consumers to navigate mobile sites, the higher the conversions. Not only will poorly designed interfaces increase bounce rates, they can also damage a brand. According to David Nachum, Associate Product Manager at Google, 61% of consumers are unlikely to return to a website they had trouble accessing from their phone. He goes on to say that last year, Google “began to limit ad serving on high-end mobile devices if they pointed to landing pages with Flash-heavy content.”

What this means for businesses is that if your site is not properly optimized for mobile, Google and other search engines will be less likely to point consumers there from organic search. With mobile search growing at an accelerating rate, an oversight like this may lead to obsolescence.

The next step would be to partner up with a direct carrier billing platform company like Mobile Messenger. With the mobile boom comes a new form of payment capabilities that that merchants can use to increase ROI by driving more sales. According to mopay, a payment solutions provider to online merchants, “Direct carrier billing will be a catalyst for innovation and change within the mobile payments industry in 2012.”

The mobile boom is happening right now. Businesses will need to redesign their online face to remain relevant in this mobile world.

About Erdolo:
Erdolo Eromo moved to South Los Angeles from Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia at the age of eight. A natural athlete, he played football for powerhouses Crenshaw High School and UCLA. He went on to earn his Executive MBA from Pepperdine University in 2011. Climbing up the corporate ladder in 6 years, Erdolo is one of the youngest senior executives in the mobile industry. He now serves as Senior Vice President of Sales and Client Services at Mobile Messenger (MM), the largest off deck mobile aggregator in the United States. He is responsible for identifying opportunities and designing strategies for sales growth. By many, Erdolo is considered to be an expert in identifying trends in the mobile commerce space as well as finding new opportunities in which the mobile phone can be used as a billing platform.